Another 4x5 on the Campaign Trail

[tim atherton]

A story about David Burnett on Dirck Halstead's inestimable Digital Journalist site

Photographing the Primaries with a 7" Aero Ektar...

http://digitaljournalist.org./issue0402/dis_burnett.html

[John Kasaian]

LOL! No doubt David's portraits have a uniquely flattering "glow" from that aero-ektar!

[domenico Foschi]

I have to respect the courage of a photojournalist for using a speed graphic in this digital world , not to mention the fact of using a tipe of lens that i have been keeping in my patio , outside my house for two years, away from me .... The images on the other hand leave me unaffected: some more of that gratuitous out of focus plane stuff that has been done too many times ...

[Ralph Barker]

Domenico - I agree with your observations, but Burnett's AD is probably too young to have seen much of the focus-plane-game stuff, and his editor probably wanted a distinctive view-camera look to justify the added expense and work-flow issues. It might have been just as interesting, though, if he had taken the Weegee approach, using flash bulbs and a 135mm lens.

[Frank Petronio]

Burnett also did campaign stories with a Rolleiflex and a Panoramic camera, and even has a book out of that work. IMHO it surpasses David Hume Kennerly's posing with his Mamiya 7 acting like it was a big accomplishment to use a 6x7 auto rangefinder for journalism! There is another story on the digital journalist website that talks about the class system of photo-journalists - the lowest class uses digital because it is fast and cheap; the highest level uses film in oddball cameras like Graphics and Holgas to make "art." Pretty funny and ironic.

[Bill_1856]

Thanks, Tim. Nice story.